# Suicide [SPOILER] *The Whorl list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 10 Aug 2000* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### Adam Stephanides *10 Aug 2000, 18:06* > Jim Jordan wrote: >> What in the text leads the suicide believers to believe so? >> >> Dennis/Endy > At the moment I'm on your side here. The fact that Silk is bleeding might > mean that he had cut himself, but it might also mean he's been defending > the house. Not only is Silk bleeding, but the house is completely torn up. > My first guess would be the Silk is dying from wounds he has received in > some conflict, and that Hyacinth is already dead from the same. It's not explicitly stated that Silk committed suicide (or even that it is Silk and Hyacinth), but to me, the combination of Silk's bleeding, the fact that Hyacinth is in her coffin and the bloodstained knife is by Silk's hand, and the Neighbor's reference to Silk as "someone whose own spirit is dying" make suicide, or at least self-mutilation, probable. If Silk had been defending himself and Hyacinth, he surely would have bandaged his wounds before putting her in a coffin; nor would there be any reason for the knife to be by his hand now. It may be, though, that Silk has slashed himself in a frenzy of grief rather than purposefully committing suicide; this would fit the Neighbor's words as well, and his frenzy could also explain the destruction in the house. --Adam *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ---